That had taken the wind out of his cocky, confident sails and she slowed her stride, allowing Izzy, Jason, and Fliss to catch up with her. Conor looked back, the expression on his face puzzled and she felt a tiny spike of satisfaction. He was used to women falling at his feet. Well, this one wasn’t going to.

The fence loomed up out of the driving rain and everyone naturally huddled around Conor and Hannah as the wind swirled into their faces.

‘We need to get the fence down but without damaging any of the posts and rails,’ shouted Conor over the wind howling around them. Everyone in rain-slicked coats and hoods nodded, their torches bobbing, looking rather like a group of dementors. ‘They all need to be neatly stacked on the other side of the boundary.’ Conor pointed to the dry-stone wall that marked the separation between Murphy and Byrne land. He consulted with Seamus and Peter for a moment as they studied the fence, tugging at the rails nailed to the posts, working out the construction.

‘OK, it’s probably best if we organise into groups. Seamus and Alan, Peter and Jason, Fliss, Izzy and Meredith. Me and Hannah, we’ll prise the rails off and the rest of you carry them over to the wall.’

If Conor thought he was going to win her over by pairing up with her, he had another think coming. Ignoring her glower, Conor directed everyone to different sections of the fence. ‘Once we’ve got a few off, we’ll start trying to loosen the posts. Luckily, Murphy and his nephew obviously believed this fence didn’t need to last too long, so they never bothered cementing the posts in.’

Hannah followed him to their allotted section and he handed her a claw-footed hammer to start pulling the nails out. Her fingers slipped on the handle several times and she bruised and scraped her knuckles on the rough wood but she didn’t say a word, just kept working, hunched into her coat.

‘You all right?’

‘Fine,’ she replied, ignoring the curl of longing at the concern in his voice. This was the perfect way to halt things between them. Somewhere along the line she’d realised she wanted a proper relationship. One without a pre-agreed expiration date.

They pulled the first rail away and immediately set to work on the second.

‘Are you going to give me the cold shoulder all night?’ he asked as they moved onto the next set of rail.

‘Who benefits the most from this?’ responded Hannah, with a roll of her eyes and a sigh.

‘What do you mean?’